I Don’t Do Well With Soft Rejection
Or Why I Didn’t Do Sports In High School
I didn’t do any sports in high school. Nada. Zilch. None. Not that it wasn’t a requirement to graduate, but somehow I managed to get around that. Or I might be living one of my recurring nightmares, where I get a call from my alma mater saying that my master’s degree is null and void, because I didn’t fulfill the requirements to enroll in the first place. I digress.
I had reasons for not doing sports, the most obvious one is that I’m no good. I have no sense of target or direction, I run like a giraffe, I couldn’t catch a ball if it was handed to me in a paper bag and my life depended on it.
Note to reader: don’t ever play darts with me!
I know, I know, if I don’t practice I won’t get better, but that is just something parents say to make their kids quit whining — I am one of those parents! — and in honesty this was more about the rejection of not being picked (or rather being picked and then spending my time on the bench waiting) than not wanting to look like a drunk albatross on the grass thingy. Bear with me, I will get to the point.
My point is that I hate soft rejection. Don’t get me wrong, I can take no for an answer. A straight no. A flat out no. A loud and clear no. Those I am cool with. It is the non-committal yes that makes me gag.
See, I am a loyal person. I am dedicated. And I go deep. So if I am chosen for anything; dodge ball, poker, employment, friendship, sex, you name it, I assume that we go all-in, no holds barred. Engaging with me is a contact sport so to speak. And being placed on the bench (not a euphemism!) will not work for me. I will go bonkers trying to figure out what is wrong with me so I can fix it, because that is who I am. Like an Afghan Hound with a hot spot I will keep clawing at it and it will not be pretty!
By the time I figure out that you are just not that into me, I will be certifiable. I’ll be standing on the curb waiting for the nice men in the white scrubs to take me away. But the worst part is it takes me forever to recover from that. 4EVA! And that is time we both could have used for something more productive. I could have not killed myself chasing windmills. You could have not been so annoyed with me.
Knowing how much I suck at coping with soft rejection, almost as much as I suck at sports, I made a decision to just not expose myself to it. Nope. Don’t do it. At the first whiff of a maybe I’ll leave without a fuss or a grudge. Better to know now than later. Dodge ball scholarships are hard to come by, anyway. So that is why I didn’t do PE in high school.
This is the third post in the 31 Days of Ninja Writing Challenges by Shaunta Grimes. Pair it with You Keep Me Hangin’ On by The Supremes (1965) and enjoy!
